The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) spent years as a punching bag for critics. You probably saw the headlines. People called it a floating paperweight. They mocked the toilets, the elevators, and those high-tech catapults that seemed to break if someone looked at them funny. It was late. It was over budget. It was, honestly, a bit of a PR nightmare for the Pentagon. But here’s the thing about naval engineering on this scale: the first of a class is always a headache. Always.
Now that the US Navy Ford class is actually out there operating, the narrative is shifting fast. We aren't just looking at a slightly better version of the old Nimitz-class carriers. This is a fundamental redesign of how a city at sea generates power and hurls aircraft into the sky.
The Massive Power Leap Nobody Talks About
The most boring part of the ship is actually the most important. I’m talking about the Bechtel A1B nuclear reactors. On paper, they look like just another power source, but they generate nearly three times the electrical capacity of the Nimitz class.
Why does a boat need that much juice?
Basically, the Navy is future-proofing. We are moving into an era of directed-energy weapons—think lasers and high-power microwaves—that suck up electricity like crazy. If you tried to bolt a massive defensive laser onto an old Nimitz carrier, you’d probably blow every fuse on the ship. The Ford class handles it without breaking a sweat. It’s essentially a 100,000-ton battery that happens to carry 75 planes.
The ship uses a 13,800-volt electrical distribution system. Compare that to the 4,160 volts on older carriers. It’s a jump that allowed the Navy to ditch the heavy, maintenance-heavy steam pipes that used to run through the entire hull. When you remove miles of pressurized steam piping, you save weight, reduce heat, and—most importantly—reduce the number of sailors needed to turn valves and patch leaks.
EMALS: The End of the Steam Era
If you’ve ever watched Top Gun, you know the iconic white clouds of steam on the flight deck. That’s history. The US Navy Ford class uses the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, or EMALS.
It works like a railgun for planes.
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Instead of building up steam pressure and releasing it with a violent jerk, EMALS uses a linear induction motor to accelerate the aircraft smoothly. This is a big deal for airframe longevity. Steam catapults are "dumb" instruments; they hit the plane with a massive hammer of force regardless of whether it’s a heavy F/A-18 Super Hornet or a light drone. EMALS is precise. It can be dialed in for the exact weight of the aircraft, which means less wear and tear on the wings and landing gear.
Early on, EMALS had a "mean cycles between critical failure" rate that was, frankly, embarrassing. Reliability was the big stick used to beat the program in Congressional hearings. However, during the Ford’s 2023-2024 deployment in the Mediterranean, the system finally started hitting its stride. It's not perfect yet, but it's proving that the "sorcery" of electromagnetic launching is the only way to get the next generation of lighter, unmanned drones into the air.
Why the Island Moved
Take one look at the Ford and you’ll notice the "island"—the command tower—is shifted much further back toward the stern compared to older carriers. This wasn't an aesthetic choice.
By moving the island, the Navy created a massive amount of "pit stop" space on the flight deck. It’s all about Sortie Generation Rate (SGR). In a high-end fight, the winner is usually the one who can get planes up, get them back, re-arm them, and get them back up the fastest. The Ford's deck layout is designed like a NASCAR pit road.
- The "mule" tractors don't have to crisscross as much.
- Refueling and re-arming happen in centralized locations.
- The weapons elevators—those famous Advanced Weapons Elevators (AWE)—bring bombs straight up to the handling areas rather than requiring long, manual hauls across the deck.
Speaking of those elevators, they use "Maglev" technology. No cables. Just magnets. They were the bane of the Navy’s existence for five years because the software kept glitching. Now that all 11 are operational, the speed at which ordnance reaches the flight deck is staggering. We are talking about a 33% increase in sortie rates over the Nimitz class. In a real conflict, that’s the difference between controlling the airspace and losing a carrier group.
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The Human Cost of Automation
One thing people often miss is the crew size. The US Navy Ford class is designed to operate with about 500 to 600 fewer sailors than its predecessors.
That sounds like a win for the budget, and it is. Over the 50-year lifespan of a ship like the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) or the USS Doris Miller (CVN 81), the Navy expects to save billions in personnel costs. But there’s a catch. When you have fewer people, every single person becomes a single point of failure. The sailors on the Ford have to be more specialized, more tech-savvy, and arguably more stressed because there’s no "extra" muscle to pick up the slack when things get hectic.
The living conditions are better, though. No more 40-man berthing areas where you're stacked like cordwood. The Ford features smaller staterooms, better gyms, and—this is a genuine luxury at sea—bathrooms that aren't shared by an entire deck. It sounds trivial, but when you're on a 9-month deployment in the Red Sea, those small comforts keep the crew from burning out.
Addressing the "Carrier is Dead" Argument
You can't talk about the Ford class without mentioning the "anti-access/area denial" (A2/AD) threat. Critics argue that China’s DF-21D "carrier killer" missiles make these $13 billion ships obsolete.
It’s a valid concern, but it’s often oversimplified.
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A carrier doesn’t sail alone. It’s the center of a strike group. The Ford is protected by Aegis-equipped destroyers, nuclear attack submarines, and its own wing of E-2D Advanced Hawkeyes that can see over the horizon. Furthermore, the Ford's new dual-band radar (DBR) and the upcoming Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR) on later ships in the class provide a level of tracking that makes it much harder for a missile to sneak through.
The Navy’s bet is that the carrier’s mobility—moving at 30+ knots—combined with its new electronic warfare suites makes it a much harder target than a fixed airbase on land. If a base in Guam gets cratered, it stays cratered. If a carrier moves 500 miles overnight, the enemy has to find it all over again.
What’s Next for the Program?
We are currently looking at a four-ship initial block.
- USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78): Active and proving the tech.
- USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79): Launched and undergoing fitting out; it’s incorporating "lessons learned" to avoid the Ford's early mistakes.
- USS Enterprise (CVN 80): Under construction, utilizing the first-ever "digital twin" design process.
- USS Doris Miller (CVN 81): Future construction, named after the Pearl Harbor hero.
The transition from CVN 78 to CVN 79 is where we will see if the Navy actually learned its lesson about "concurrency"—the risky practice of building the ship while still inventing the technology inside it. The Kennedy is being built with a more streamlined process, and many of the "fixes" that had to be retrofitted onto the Ford are being baked into the hull from day one.
Practical Insights for Following the Fleet
If you’re tracking the progress of these behemoths, stop looking at the cost overruns of the past and start looking at the "Full Operational Capability" (FOC) milestones.
- Watch the Air Wing: The real test of the Ford class isn't the ship itself, but how it integrates the F-35C and the MQ-25 Stingray (the new unmanned refueler). The carrier is just the delivery vehicle; the air wing is the punch.
- Follow the Deployment Cycles: The Ford's first "real" combat-adjacent deployment in the Eastern Mediterranean showed that the ship can maintain a high tempo for months. That's the metric that matters to the Pentagon.
- Monitor the Tech Transfer: The EMALS and AWE tech are already being eyed for smaller "light carriers" or even land-based applications.
The US Navy Ford class represents a massive gamble on high-end technology over proven, "good enough" systems. It was a rocky start, definitely. But as the Kennedy prepares for its turn in the spotlight, the growing pains of the Ford are starting to look like the necessary price of maintaining naval dominance for the next half-century.
To stay updated on the specific movements and technical upgrades of the fleet, the US Naval Institute (USNI) News and the official Navy NAVSEA portals remain the most reliable sources for verified data, far removed from the sensationalist headlines of general news outlets. Observe the sea trials of the CVN 79 in the coming months; that will be the true litmus test for whether the class has truly matured.